~ Mild spoilers ~

To be clear, my expectations were low. The cast has been thoroughly ridiculed since it was first announced, and the trailer didn't inspire much hope; Nathan Drake, who is supposed to be 31 in the first Uncharted game and 40 years old by the last, is played by Tom Holland, a boy who will look 16 years old for the rest of his life. At one point in the film there's a "15 years earlier" flashback where the child actor who plays babby Nathan Drake actually looks about the same age as Tom Holland does as an adult. The final pinch of salt in the gaping wound that is the Uncharted movie is the taunting cameo of Nolan North, who both looks and sounds far more convincing as the protagonist.

Don't even get me started on Mark Wahlberg, a man who deserves to just eat a big bag of wool.

The film pays homage to the games several times and it is at it's best when it's playing on the videogame tropes that made the games so enjoyable - there's a National Treasure/Indiana Jones-esque joy to watching a bunch of characters solve the puzzles and traps in ancient catacombs around the world, and the action sequences are straight out of the Fast & Furious playbook; they shine the most when the film abandons logic and realism and embraces the ridiculousness of the virtual world. This is undercut by consistently poor writing, with characters randomly and arbitrarily killed, and very little development of any of the series favorites. While the writers clearly are attempting to mimic Indiana Jones, they misunderstood that the charm of the character is that he's primarily, first and foremost, a huge nerd; virtual Nathan Drake is also a huge nerd, but the Uncharted film devotes far too much time attempting to make him "cool" by having him throw bottles around behind a bar and do pullups with no shirt on. One can't help but feel this is the 2022 equivalent of making a character beatbox or skateboard in a desperate attempt to make them edgy, a lazy shortcut to any actual character development.

Unsurprisingly the Uncharted film is a bit of a letdown. I think it will be enjoyed by a lot of people (It's got a 90% approval audience RottonTomatoes score right now, and only 40% critical) but the people who enjoy this movie seem unlikely to be the same people who enjoyed the videogames. Credit where it's due, if you're looking for lighthearted entertainment then this will satisfy the National Treasure/Da Vinci Code crowd, with a loose plot wrapped in pseudo-intellectual historical nonsense that is essentially just a pretense for over-the-top action sequences. It's extremely family-friendly; at one point a character has his throat cut and there is no blood spray at all?! That may just be a personal gripe as someone who works in the film industry, but if you're not going to have a visceral spurt of blood shoot out of a gaping neck wound then why even put it in the movie at all?

One can't help but feel that one of the most cinematic videogames ever made deserved a little more love, but i'm sure the people involved in making this film will feel extremely vindicated by the audiences around the world who are crying out for lighthearted action movies to break up their monotonous doomscrolling.

Just make sure if you decide to watch it that your expectations are appropriately low.

Thanks For Reading

Love Sweep

Yeah, the throat cut was just bizzare. In the first shot there's literally no blood at all, and then a bit later they show the actual wound and it's like a red line with two tiny trails of blood leaking out. Also, Wahlberg playing Wahlberg..... Just such a strange choice. The movie also doesn't go into any supernatural stuff (which admittedly is one of the most controversial parts of the games), which I think could've spiced it up a bit.

It seems to succeed at what it's trying to do though, and for a videogame movie it's far better than the standard, but it seems more focused on making a "successful" movie rather than capturing the potential of a good Uncharted movie.

I came in with really low expectations, which helped me enjoy it quite a bit. It was fun, and once I got over the casting I wound up kinda liking these versions of the characters.

Though I still preferred the newer Tomb Raider movie.

Oh, you're spot on--the Uncharted movie is total dog ass.

General audiences flocked to see this movie to watch the MCU's Spider-Man / Tom Holland play generic treasure hunter, not because they know or care about Uncharted as a video game franchise.

The general consensus on the Uncharted subreddit is the overwhelming majority of movie audiences in theaters had NO IDEA who Nolan North was as THE Nathan Drake, during his cameo.

All 5'6" and 145 lbs. of Tom "Babyface" Holland was miscast as 6' 220+ lbs. Nathan Drake, and Mark Wahlberg is a terrible actor, basically playing himself in the movie. The director is middling and the writers are some C-tier TV hack writers who basically robbed / stole liberall from Uncharted 2, 3, and 4 to cobble this turd of a movie together.

BTW: The Audience Score is ONLY ~90% on Rotten Tomatoes. The other review aggregator sites have the Audience score MUCH LOWER, more in line with how the Critics reviewed / panned the film (Sony goosing the RT numbers???).

What's truly sad? Tom Holland will easily get paid 10x - 100x more than all of the VO cast for the Uncharted video games combined for this turd of a movie.

Truly awful movie. The casting is terrible and the acting across the board was just dreadful. The main thing going for it was that it was loosely connected to the games and of you take that away it somehow becomes worse. Just absolute garbage that doesn't even come close to the level of other blockbuster action movies

For me, I have no interest to watch this movie because I'm not a fan of treasure hunting stories in general plus I cannot get into the Tomb Raider & Indiana Jones as well.

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I can admit that the Uncharted & Tomb Raider franchise both have good gameplay.

After your first paragraph I had to look up Tom Hollands age, as I thought he was between 18-21 years old. Shocked he is 25!

Anyways I watched the movie I thought it was decent, It's an average treasure hunting movie better than the 3 tomb raider movies, not as entertaining as the National Treasure movies. Its forgettable just like the 2005 movie Sahara

Videogame movies have typically always been bad, and I guess this one's no exception. This one would be ripe for TANG treatment I bet.

This might as well have been action adventure movie #18273. There was nothing special about it.

@csl316: the Tomb Raider was up and down but I firmly believe the scene in which Lara raids that camp leading into the climax is one of the best translations of how it can feel playing a video game at a high level to the big screen ever. The way the camera moves and Lara interacts with her environment is so subtle it actually probably goes over a general audience’s head (other than it’s a pretty well done action/stealth sequence on its own) but if you’ve played a third person action game it makes your Spidey senses perk up a bit.

I’m also a huge softy for Alicia Vikander so I really didn’t care that she was a bit petite for the role. Outside of her extremely slender build (and I think she’d look weird if she went full Linda Hamilton so it just is what it is) I thought she played a great Lara

@nodima: Yeah, it's not an amazing movie but it did just enough to keep me engaged. And she really is great.

If you want a better execution of the Indiana Jones formula, I recommend The Lost City. Sandra "America's Sweetheart" Bullock and Channing Tatum solving ancient puzzles and quipping is way more fun than the Uncharted movie.

Tom Holland needs to pick better scripts.

As someone who thinks that the Uncharted games are ridiculously overrated, this was a fun, dumb movie. It was aggressively PG-13; that neck slash was hilariously tame, as others have said. As is common with most movie trailers, the best scenes were in the trailer.

I didn't hate Tom Holland as Drake, though he is too young. The combination of elements from all four games made for weird pacing. If this movie wasn't based on a popular game franchise, it would've been a middling but serviceable adventure movie. Instead, it was a middling action movie that failed to live up to its name, but was probably about the best we could expect after years of development hell.

I legitimately liked the Nolan North cameo. It wasn't unexpected, but the timing and dialogue of the cameo was.

Outside of Spiderman, I think this is the best movie Tom Holland has been a part of, which is kind of insane. I don't know how he picks scripts but its hilarious how poorly he chooses.

That said, I thought the movie was totally fine. It's not good but it's a not annoying movie that I might leave on in the background if its on tv in the future.

@finaldasa: Tom Holland doing the Uncharted movie was about 3 things:

1) Getting paid--Tom will make more money from this one Uncharted movie than ALL of the original voice cast / actors in the video game franchise... combined, multiplied by 10. That's a fuckin' shame. (The same goes for Mr. "Can't Act" Marky Mark.)

2) Being in bed with Sony / Spider-Man. Sony is desperate for an MCU / Fast & the Furious franchise of their own (besides Spider Man), something they can make billions off of for the next decade plus.

3) ALL of Tom's non-MCU movies have been duds and flops in comparison.

Tom is a "Babyface" man in his mid-20's (who will always be a babyface), 5'6", 145 lbs., and not a very good / strong actor (outside of the MCU). His options are limited.

@nameredacted: I think Tom Holland could be a modern Keanu Reeves. He seems like he's got plenty of physical ability for stunts and action and is likeable and good looking. I assume Marvel and Sony are keeping him completely bubble-wrapped but if he ever got the chance to do something action heavy I think it could be great.